The All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship qualifiers are a single-elimination series of qualifying games held concurrently with the Leinster and Munster championships to determine the last two remaining participants of the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship. Eleven teams, effectively every team that does not qualify for the respective provincial deciders, participate in the qualifiers.
The qualifiers can be traced to the introduction of the "back door system" which was first introduced in 1997, though in the early years, qualification was open only to the beaten provincial finalists in Leinster and Munster. The first true series of All-Ireland qualifiers began in 2002, when the defeated provincial quarter and semi-finalists as well as the defeated Ulster finalists were given a second opportunity of competing for the All-Ireland title. A round robin system was subsequently introduced for a brief period, however, the single-elimination series returned in 2008.
While the qualifiers were introduced as a way of helping the so-called "weaker" teams, the system has occasionally come in for criticism for giving the more successful teams a greater chance of winning the All-Ireland title.[1][2][3]